Winter In Manila

Karma sure has a way of shutting up my streams of complaints about how terribly hot this summer is.

Since last night I was having chills. Chills, damn it, chills. During the hottest summer in the Metro.

While the weather hasn’t been really fun, beating the heat by being sick is not the way to do it. Maybe taking a bath twice a day wasn’t such a good idea.

I woke up around 2 in the morning shaking profusely and thinking, “there has got to be some mistake!”. But nope, there wasn’t any mistake. Bigla kong pinatay ang electric fan, nagsuot ako ng pajama at nagtalukbong ng kumot dahil sobrang ginaw na ginaw ako. What’s weird is that I have this sort of conscious, sort of going-into-dream train of thought that I was living in an alternate reality (blame it on Back To The Future, Part 2, which I rewatched earlier that evening). I keep checking my watch and my celfone and I seemed to be pretty convinced that both clocks are at least an hour late! Heat and fever has a way of addling one’s brains.

The office isn’t exactly conducive to my current state. The only thing I look forward to when going to work was that at least I am in a really cold environment, but right now all I want is to go anywhere where there is no aircon or electric fan. I am wearing a coat and a shawl, for goodness’ sake!

I hope I get well soon. And I promise to reduce my complaints about the weather to a bare minimum. Brrr!!!

MAD WORLD

I first heard the horrific news yesterday about the shooting rampage in Virginia Tech from a friend. When I got home, I tuned in to CNN to watch their coverage and learned that the assailant, 23-year old student Cho Seung-Hui, managed to kill 32 people and wound 17 others, before turning the gun on himself.

I realized that it wasn’t just morbid curiosity on my part that made me watch the news. I was shocked and angry, but mostly I was sad - for the victims and their families for their painful loss, for the survivors who had to live with the memory of that day, and for the young killer, who will always make people wonder: what happened to this person that made him capable of doing such deed? All we know so far is that he was a loner, and the plays he wrote for his English class were quite disturbing and violently graphic and seem to be written by a very, very angry man. But do these things truly explain his motives?

I’ll reserve my opinion about guns and “the people’s right to bear arms” for another day, but it made me angry to find out that the killer used a semi-automatic handgun in his shooting rampage (not even a big gun or an assault weapon), a gun capable of firing 15 shots in just seconds. A gun so deadly in just about anybody’s hands.

And then all around the world are other news of violence – in Japan, the mayor of Nagasaki was killed when he was shot point-blank by an organized crime chief who was angered when his car was damaged by a hole in a public works site and was unsuccessful in getting compensation from the city. In Nigeria, a mob burned a police station and killed the officer-in-charge, his wife and 11 other officers. In Brazil, 20 people died in a shootout between rival drug gangs and police.

I dearly wish for a safe and less violent world but I know it takes more than a blog entry for us to achieve lasting peace. But now I take this moment and say a prayer for the victims of this senseless violence.

...went to school and I was very nervous, no one knew me, no one knew me, hello teacher tell me what's my lesson, look right through me, look right through me. And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad, the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I ever had, I find it hard to tell you, coz I find it hard to take, when people run in circles, it's a very, very mad world...

Mad World, Tears For Fears

What Now, Pacquiao?

This time I finally succeeded in finding a live streaming site on the web so I was able to watch a commercial-free Manny Pacquiao-Jorge Solis fight. That folks is a lot of relief considering the alternative - seeing the commercial of Recom Echiverri dancing Boom Tarat Tarat (what an assault to the senses!).

To be honest, I really don't know what to feel about Pacquiao right now. A few days ago, I told friends that I wanted him to lose the fight and the elections. But today, right before the fight started, I wanted, badly, for him to win his fight spectacularly. This despite Hermie Rivera's overhype (seriously? Ang kanyang puso at katapangan ay kasinlaki ng utang panlabas ng ating bansa. What sort of garbage is that?!).

The fight was a bit boring in the early goings, but picked up when Pacquiao got an accidental cut on his left eyebrow (like, he literally saw red and went on a rampage). I'm amused by their constant reference to Pacquiao as a "congressional candidate".

I am still excited about his win, but not as much as I used to. I guess Pacquiao lost a bit of his magic in my eyes when he decided to pursue a political career. Because, really, Congressman Manny Pacquiao?! Sounds and feels all kinds of wrong. But that's just me.

Unbroken

From PostSecret:

Fooled

Bakit walang nag-react sa entry ko kahapon?! You're supposed to believe what I've written!

I guess the joke's on me. =P

Belated April's Fool Day!

Fool

I had been secretly married for 5 weeks now and none of my family and friends know about it. I think now is the time to come clean.

I made a monumental mistake. And now I'm leaving him.

I was caught under his spell. He made me feel loved and protected. I was happier than I ever was. He was the knight in shining armor I've waited for my whole life.

Everything felt so good, so right. There was no time to tell people about him. I've only known him for two months before we got hitched. I was reckless, madly in love. I should have known better.

He betrayed me. I caught him seeing someone else. He was seeing another man.

I was shattered. My heart has been crushed, broken, trampled upon. Funny how I can feel so much pain in that place that has been left hollow, the place where he used to be. I wish I've never known his smile, his smell, his embrace, his kiss. I wish there's an end to all this pain.

I wish he would die. Slowly. Painfully. The way my heart died.